This title is a quote from Jesus Himself as recorded in Luke 18:8.
There are many types and parallels found in the New Testament based on the Old Testament. One such parallel is Moses’s ascension up Mt Sanai and Jesus’s ascension to Heaven. Moses went up the mountain to God and received the ten commandments. After 40 days, he came back down to God’s chosen. What he found was shocking. Thinking Moses had left them for good, they fell into riotous, amoral, idol worship. Even Moses’ brother Aaron was caught up in the revelry, providing a golden calf for them to worship. No, Moses did not find faith in the camp when he returned, even though he was only gone 40 days. He found just the opposite. Jesus, on the other hand, has gone up to God, where, since His ascension, He sits at the right hand of His Father, until the date set by the Father for His return to His people. He will have been gone two millennia. Then, Jesus’s rhetorical question will be answered. Will He find faith on the earth? A rhetorical question is one asked for effect, not requiring an answer. Jesus knew the answer. Jesus asked this in between teaching two parables. The first was concerning the speedy judgment He will deliver to the ungodly. The second was a parable about the self-righteous who think they are justified before God.
The bible does not paint a very good picture of what Jesus will find when He returns. Consider these scriptures: “Now the Spirit expressly says that in the latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron.” (1 Timothy 4:1-2). “But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come; for men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.” (2 Timothy 3:1-2). Jesus Himself said; “And because lawlessness will abound, the love of most will grow cold.” (Matthew 24:12)
The answer to Jesus’s rhetorical question is that Jesus will find faith on the earth, but confined to His Church, His bride, those without spot or wrinkle, or as Paul says, a chaste virgin prepared for Christ, thoroughly tested in great tribulation. Unfortunately, the vast majority of humankind, like those in the desert waiting for Moses will have succumbed to the wiles of the god of this world and become objects of God’s wrath. It’s our job as Christ-followers to introduce as many as possible to the God who saves us and His Son who died for us. We need to help grow the camp of the faithful on this earth so that Jesus will indeed find faith on the earth in abundance when He comes. The field is ripe for the harvest.
Maranatha, Jim